SSRLUO 2019-2020 Executive Committee Members | Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource

The SSRL Users Executive Committee (UEC) encourages users to participate in SSRL events and contact UEC members to share feedback or suggestions:

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University (SSRL UEC Chair)

Monica Barney, Chevron Energy Technology Company

David Bushnell, Stanford University (SSRL UEC Past Chair 2018)

Michael Capano, Purdue University

Bor-Rong (Hypo) Chen, SLAC/Stanford University

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC/Stanford University

James P. Evans, Utah State University

Natalie Geise, Stanford University

Graham George, University of Saskatchewan (SSRL UEC Past Chair 2019)

Henry (Pete) La Pierre, Georgia Institute of Technology

Nathan Lavey, University of Oklahoma

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center

Rebecca Page, University of Arizona

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University

Roseanne Sension, University of Michigan (Ex Officio, LCLS UEC)

Angelia Seyfferth, University of Delaware

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute (SSRL UEC Vice Chair)

Kelly Lynn Summers, University of Saskatchewan

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA, (Ex Officio NUFO/SSURF)

Leilani Conradson, SLAC (LCLS Liaison, Ex Officio)

Lisa Dunn, SLAC (SSRL Liason, Ex Officio)

Cathy Knotts, SLAC (SSRL Liaison, Ex Officio)

Monica Barney, Chevron Energy Technology Co, Richmond, CA 94802
Monica is an Advanced Materials Research Scientist in the Materials and Corrosion R&D Group at the Chevron Energy Technology Company. With a unique background in chemistry and materials science, she develops novel analytical methods to improve corrosion rate prediction of materials exposed oil-based solutions at high temperature. Throughout her career, she has specialized in advanced characterization, often employing synchrotron x-ray methods to solve tough, ongoing engineering problems. First using the microdiffraction beamline at the ALS for her Ph.D. work at the University of California, Berkeley, she has continued to discover new approaches using synchrotron x-rays, with a patent recently granted for a spectroscopy technique developed at SSRL to characterize sulfur species in crude oil.

David Bushnell, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Dave Bushnell is a Sr. Research Associate in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University. His research focuses on using structural methods such as electron microscopy and protein crystallography to understand and control the process of gene expression. Dave received his BS degree from Cornell University and went on to complete a PhD in Biophysics from Stanford University. While working in the lab of Prof. Roger Kornberg, Dave was part of the team that solved the atomic structure of the 10 subunit yeast RNA Polymerase II which contributed to Prof. Kornberg being awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Dave has continued his structural studies of RNA polymerase II mechanism including solving the structure of RNA Polymerase II with the inhibitor alpha-amanitin. Recently he has been involved with Cocrystal Pharma Inc., a small start up that uses structure guided drug discovery techniques to develop novel anti-viral therapies. Dave’s first beamtime at SSRL was May 5, 1994 and he has been an active user ever since. In addition to experience at SSRL he has performed experiments at LCLS, ALS, APS, CHESS and NSLS.

Michael Capano, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47097
Michael Capano is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. Michael received his PhD from MIT. His research interests are microelectronics and nanotechnology.

Bor-Rong (Hypo) Chen, SLAC/Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Bor-Rong (Hypo) joined Mike Toney’s Group at SLAC in May, 2017 as a postdoctoral researcher. She works on tracking the formation process of metal oxides during solution-based synthesis by using in-situ X-ray wide angle scattering and X-ray absorption spectroscopy at SSRL. Bor-Rong hopes to identify and understand the progression of intermediate/metastable materials that can be accessed along synthesis pathways. From 2011 - 2017, Bor-Rong was a frequent user at the APS for her Ph.D. projects at Northwestern University, where she studied the properties of Pd nanoparticle catalysts supported on SrTiO₃ surfaces. Bor-Rong is highly interested in serving as a UEC representative for Materials/Chemistry field. At Northwestern University, she was the president of Materials Research Society (MRS) Student Chapter, and was involved in organizing regular career workshops and hosting alumni panel discussions from 2013 - 2016.

Amy Cordones-Hahn, PULSE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Amy Cordones-Hahn is an Associate Staff Scientist in the PULSE Institute at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Her research interests revolve around understanding how photoexcitation of electronic excited states drives chemical reactions of functional transition metal complexes, such as molecular photocatalysts. Amy uses time-resolved x-ray spectroscopy to resolve photochemical reactions in real-time and is interested in helping to grow these capabilities and build a larger ultrafast science user community at SSRL.

Lisa Dunn, SSRL User Research Administration, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Lisa has worked at SSRL since 1986, and has been part of the User Research Administration team since 2000. Lisa manages the administration proposal review and scheduling for macromolecular crystallography and biological small angle scattering beam lines. Lisa earned her Bachelor of Science degree from San Jose State University.

James P. Evans, Utah State University,Logan, UT 84322-4505
James Evans is Professor of Geosciences at Utah State University. He received his Ph.D. and MS in Geology from Texas A&M University. His research interests include rock deformation from the micro scale to the map scale. Quantitative analysis of fluid-rock interactions as applied to earthquake processes, energy resources, and CO₂ sequestration.

Natalie Geise, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Natalie Geise is a PhD student in Chemistry at Stanford University and works in Mike Toney's group at SSRL. Prior to her graduate studies, Natalie worked in Terry Gullion's solid state NMR group looking at peptide arrangement on nanoparticle surfaces while an undergraduate at West Virginia University. Natalie's current research focuses on high-capacity Li-metal anodes for Li-ion batteries. Through synchrotron-based x-ray techniques at SSRL, ALS and APS and electrochemical measurements, she works on understanding the formation of the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) and its relation to Li metal plating.

Graham George, University of Saskatchevan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Graham George was educated at King's College London (B.Sc., 1979) and the University of Sussex (D. Phil., 1983). After postdoctoral fellowships at Sussex and Exxon Research & Engineering Co. in New Jersey USA, he continued at Exxon as a Principal Investigator. Graham was Exxon Participating Research Team spokesperson for both NSLS X10-C and SSRL 6-2 between 1988 and 1992. In 1992 Graham married fellow synchrotron radiation researcher Ingrid Pickering and moved to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory where he held the position of Physicist until 2003. In 2003 he became full professor and Canada Research Chair in X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy at the University of Saskatchewan. Graham's first experiments using synchrotron radiation were on the EMBL XAS beamline at DESY Hamburg in April 1982, and his first experiments at SSRL were on Beam Line 7-3 in December 1983. Since that first run at SSRL Graham has taken part in over 185 different beamtime experiments at SSRL, and has published more than 270 papers using data collected at SSRL. His research bridges the chemical, the environmental and the life sciences and includes a career-long interest in metalloenzymes, toxic metals and fuel science.

Cathy Knotts, >SSRL User Research Administration Manager, Menlo Park, CA 94025
Cathy has managed SSRL User Research Administration since November 2000, taking on the additional responsibilities for establishing and managing a joint SSRL/LCLS User Office from 2007-2015 (LCLS began operations with the first user assisted commissioning experiments in 2009). Before joining SLAC, Cathy managed administrative operations and corporate communications in the biotechnology industry (1994-2000). Prior to moving to California to help start a biotech company, she was a management analyst for the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Cathy graduated from the University of Maryland majoring in Health Science and Policy.

Henry (Pete) La Pierre, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332
Henry joined the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Nuclear Engineering Program at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2016. His graduate work, with Professors John Arnold, Robert Bergman, and Dean Toste at UC-Berkeley, focused on the development of a Z-selective alkyne semihydrogenation catalyst. Following graduation, he studied ligand control of reactive low- and high-valent uranium complexes as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Karsten Meyer at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. In 2014, he joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory XAS program as a Director's Postdoctoral Fellow and employed ligand K-edge XAS to study covalency in transuranic complexes. He has been a user of SSRL since 2015 and has also performed synchrotron experiments at ANKA. His current research uses synchrotron spectroscopy to understand how f-element valence and orbital energy govern magnetic superexchange and multi-configurational behavior in molecular complexes and extended solids.

Nathan Lavey, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019
Nathan is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in Dr. Adam Duerfeldt’s laboratory at the University of Oklahoma. After working at a biotechnology startup in Boston for two years, he decided to return to academia. Nathan combines structural biology methods such as SAXS and x-ray crystallography with biochemistry techniques, to elucidate the role of ClpP in the virulence of a bacterial organism, as well as structurally guide the design of small molecules that target ClpP. Nathan routinely utilizes the SSRL for macromolecular x-ray crystallography, in order to reconcile biochemical observations with structural evidence, and utilize that information to guide the design of antimicrobial small molecules that activate ClpP. He has completed the CCP4 training workshop at the Advanced Photon Source, and has been a frequent remote-SSRL user since 2015.

Blaine Mooers, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73190
Blaine Mooers is an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC). In addition to faculty, he serves as the director of the Laboratory of Biomolecular Structure and Function, which is also a core facility for the Oklahoma COBRE in Structural Biology. Blaine began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student by working on problems in DNA structure with Dr. Shing Ho at Oregon State University. He worked on problems in protein structure as a post-doc with Dr. Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon. While a post-doc, he used synchrotron radiation to collect atomic resolution data from crystals of proteins, thanks to expert guidance in data collection from SSRL staff. He determined the structures of several proteins and RNAs by direct methods with data collected at SSRL. Blaine has been a proposal spokesperson continuously since 2000, first in on OUHSC structural studies of RNAs and proteins from the unique RNA editing system in the mitochondrion of trypanosomes. He also collaborates with several OUHSC labs on structural studies of proteins related to influenza and cancer biology. He has been involved in SAXS studies since 2011 and is an active user of BL 4-2. Blaine believes that crystallography will continue to play a vital role in integrative structural biology. He served as chair of the SSRL User Executive Committee (UEC) during the existential budget crisis of 2017. He seeks re-election to the UEC to represent the concerns and needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography. http://structuralbiology.ou.edu/

Rebecca Page, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
Rebecca Page is the Donna B. Cosulich Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Arizona. She also currently serves the CBC Associate Department Head for Research and Faculty Affairs, interim. Rebecca began macromolecular crystallography as a graduate student studying conformational change in actin with Dr. C.E. Schutt at Princeton University. She then studied neuronal metabolic proteins as a post-doc with Dr. Ray Stevens. During her last year at Scripps, she also served as the crystallomics core director for the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) yeast proteome project with Drs. Ray Stevens and Ian Wilson. During this time, she worked very closely with the JCSG group at SSRL for the development and optimization of crystal screening and data collection at SSRL. In 2004, she joined the faculty at Brown University, being an active user of multiple X-ray crystallography and SAXS beamlines during her tenure there (2004-2016). In some years, she served as an instructor for RapiData at NSLS. Her commitment to synchrotron facilities includes serving on multiple proposal panels (from 2014-2016, she served as a proposal reviewer for ALS and in 2016-2018, she served as served on the proposal review panel for the macromolecular crystallography and SAXS beamlines at NSLS-II) and also as an external reviewer. Throughout her career, she has collected data at NSLS, NSLS-II, APS, ALS, Diamond and SSRL for projects focused on signaling and its role in disease. As a long-time user of the SSRL beamlines, she is deeply interested in the long-term success of both the SSRL facility and especially its users. Thus, she is seeking election to the UEC to represent the needs of the users of macromolecular crystallography at SSRL.

Andrew Riscoe, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Andrew Riscoe is a PhD candidate in Matteo Cargnello's group in the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford University. His research interests include XAS characterization of microporous polymer encapsulated metal catalysts for several small molecule transformations, including selective oxidation of methane to methanol.

Angelia Seyfferth, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716
Angelia Seyfferth is Associate Professor of Biogeochemistry and Plant-Soil Interactions at the University of Delaware where she works to understand the soil biogeochemical processes that dictate contaminant and nutrient cycling and uptake by plants. Her group is particularly interested in how small-scale soil-chemical processes influence contaminant (e.g., As, Cd, Pb) and nutrient (e.g., Si, P, Fe, S) release or attenuation that have large-scale impacts on human and environmental health. They use advanced analytical techniques such as synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy and imaging to unravel the species distributions of contaminants and nutrients in the rhizosphere and in plant tissues, and mechanisms of uptake by plant roots. Ultimately, they conduct basic research that can be applied to benefit society on a local-to-global scale. https://canr.udel.edu/faculty/seyfferth-angelia/

Edward Snell, Hauptman Woodward Institute, Buffalo, NY 14203
Edward Snell is President and CEO of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Buffalo New York, an independent not-for profit research institute. He is also a professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation at SUNY Buffalo and adjunct faculty at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research is supported by the NSF, NIH, and NASA and focuses on dynamic systems with an interest in metalloproteins. He has been an active and continuous user of SSRL since 1996 and a user at ESRF and SRS before that. His background is in crystallography with a gradual shift to complementary techniques including Small Angle X-ray Scattering using SSRL BL 4-2. His BioSAXS work, in close collaboration with SSRL staff, has led to an IUCr Monograph on Biological Solution Scattering published by Oxford University Press. He is also the PI of NSF funded BioXFEL Science and Technology Center which explores ultrafast dynamics and in it's current renewal focuses on the complete biological dynamics of systems. Edward (Eddie) knows SSRL and has been a strong advocate for many years. He wants to see SSRL do well in the future and and to continue to support it's users most effectively.

Timothy Stemmler, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201
Tim Stemmler is a Full Professor and Associate Chair for the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Wayne State University (WSU). In addition, Tim is an Associate Dean of the WSU Graduate School where he serves as the Director of the Postdoctoral Scholar Office. Tim been using XAS in his research since 1990, while receiving his training under Jim Penner-Hahn at the University of Michigan. After serving as an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the University of Utah, Tim started his career as a new faculty member at WSU in 2000. He has been continuously funded by the NIH and American Heart Association since 2001, and has published over 85 journal articles/reviews/book chapters predominately using XAS in his research. He has presented his work at over 77 conferences/Universities, both nationally and internationally in the past 17 years. He has had 10 PhD students, 5 MS students, and mentored 7 postdoctoral scholars, who have used XAS in their research. He has served on 27 NIH study sections since 2008, and is an active reviewer for the NSF and several International funding agencies. Tim did a sabbatical at SSRL in 2013 with Dr. Keith Hodgson and Dr. Britt Hedman and remains an active user and supporter of SSRL.

Kelly Lynn Summers, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Kelly Summers is a PhD candidate in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Saskatchewan. She holds an MSc and a BSc (Honors) in Biology from the University of Western Ontario and currently holds an Alexander Graham Bell Canadian Graduate Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to support her PhD research. She is a fellow in the Training in Health Research Using Synchrotron Techniques (THRUST) program and is part of the Molecular and Environmental Sciences Group at the University of Saskatchewan, led by Canada Research Chairs, Profs. Graham George and Ingrid Pickering. Kelly has been involved in the university community through participation in departmental committees, including the Chemistry Course Council. She has also engaged in several conference organization activities including the semi-annual Graduate Student Symposium and the annual THRUST Retreat. Throughout her graduate research Kelly has had the opportunity to operate numerous beamlines at several synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source, the Australian Synchrotron, and the Canadian Light Source, in addition to frequent runs at SSRL. Kelly received an NSERC Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to support her travel to the Australian Synchrotron and her studies there. She has experience in both x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and x-ray fluorescence Imaging techniques and uses both in her research, as well as for collaborative projects. In fact, SSRL’s biological XAS Beam Line 7-3 has been key to her research on the role of metals, particularly copper(II), in the Alzheimer’s brain and how these metals may be manipulated using metal-binding drugs.

Beth Wurzburg, LBNL, Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA 94598
Beth was a Research Associate at the LBNL Joint Genome Institute. Previously, Beth was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Prof. Ted Jardetzky. She trained as a protein biochemist (Don Wiley's laboratory) and as a crystallographer (Ted Jardetzky's laboratory), and she has been collecting data at synchrotrons since 1995. Her research interests include biophysical studies of proteins of the immune system and of human pathogens.